Tuesday, April 22, 2008

John McCain's Torture as a POW

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Early in the morning I prepared for my 23rd bombing run over North Vietnam - and my first attack on the enemy capital, Hanoi, writes White House hopeful John McCain
Our target was the thermal power plant near a small lake almost at the centre of the city.

About 9000ft, as we turned inbound on the target, our warning lights flashed and the tone for enemy radar started sounding so loudly that I had to turn down the volume.

I could see huge clouds of smoke and dust erupt on the ground as surface-to-air missiles were fired at us. The closer we came to the target, the fiercer the defences.

I recognised the target sitting next to the small lake and dived in on it, just as the tone went off signalling that a missile was flying towards me.

I knew I should roll out and fly evasive manoeuvres - "jinking" in flyers' parlance - but I was just about to release my bombs and, had I started jinking, I would never have had the time, nor probably the nerve, to go back in once I had lost the missile.

So at 1000m, I released my bombs, then pulled back the stick to begin a steep climb to a safer altitude. In the instant before the plane reacted, a missile blew my right wing off.

I knew I was hit. My A-4 aircraft, travelling at about 900km/h, was spiralling violently to Earth. I reacted automatically the moment I took the hit, reached up and pulled the ejection seat handle.

I struck part of the aircraft, breaking my left arm, my right arm in three places and my right knee, and was briefly knocked unconscious.

Witnesses said my chute had barely opened before I plunged into the shallow water of Truc Bach Lake.

Wearing about 25kg of gear, I touched the bottom of the lake and kicked off with my good leg. I did not feel any pain as I broke the surface and I did not understand why I couldn't move my arms to pull the toggle on my life vest.

I sank to the bottom again.

When I broke the surface the second time, I managed to inflate my life vest by pulling the toggle with my teeth. Then I blacked out again.

When I came to the second time, I was being hauled ashore on bamboo poles. A crowd of several hundred Vietnamese gathered around me, stripping my clothes off, spitting on me and kicking and striking me.

When they had finished removing my gear and clothes, I felt a sharp pain in my right knee. I looked down and saw that my right foot was resting next to my left knee at a 90 degree angle.

I cried out: "My God, my leg!"

Someone smashed a rifle butt into my shoulder, breaking it. Someone else stuck a bayonet in my ankle and groin. A woman, who may have been a nurse, managed to dissuade the crowd from further harming me. She then applied bamboo splints to my leg and right arm.

It was with some relief that I noticed an army truck arrive on the scene. The soldiers placed me on a stretcher, loaded me into the truck and drove a few blocks to the French-built prison, Hoa Lo, which the PoWs had named the Hanoi Hilton.

As the massive steel doors clanked shut behind me, I felt a deeper dread than I have ever felt since.

The date was October 26, 1967. I was 31 and a lieutenant commander in the US Navy when I was shot down.

For two centuries, the men of my family were raised to go to war as officers in America's armed services.

I was the son and grandson of Navy officers and my father trusted that when I met with adversity, I would use the example he had set.

The soldiers took me into an empty cell, set me down on the floor still on the stretcher and placed a blanket over me. For the next few days, I drifted in and out of consciousness.

My interrogators accused me of being a war criminal and demanded military information. They knocked me around a little and I began to feel sharp pains in my fractured limbs.

I blacked out after the first few blows.

I thought if I could hold out, they would relent and take me to a hospital.

But on the fourth day, I realised my condition had become more serious. I was feverish and losing consciousness for longer periods.

I was lying in my vomit and other bodily wastes, and my knee had become grossly swollen and discoloured.

The medic, called Zorba, took my pulse.

"Are you going to take me to the hospital?" I asked.

"No," he replied. "It's too late."

Panic that death was approaching overtook me: the Vietnamese usually refused treatment to the seriously injured. Blessedly, I lapsed into unconsciousness.

I was awakened a short while later when the camp officer, a mean son of a bitch called Bug, rushed excitedly into my cell.

"Your father is a big admiral," he shouted. "Now we take you to the hospital."

God bless my father.

It was hard not to see how pleased they were to have captured an admiral's son and I knew my father's identity was directly related to my survival.

I was moved to a hospital in central Hanoi. Coming to a couple of days later, I found myself lying in a filthy room, lousy with mosquitoes and rats.

Every time it rained, mud and water would pool on the floor. No one had even bothered to wash the grime off me.

I began to recover my wits and my interrogators came to the hospital to resume their work. The beatings were of short duration because I let out a hair-raising scream when they occurred and my interrogators appeared concerned that hospital personnel might object.

Eventually I gave them my ship's name and squadron number. When asked to identify future targets, I recited the names of north Vietnamese cities that had already been bombed.

In early December, they operated on my leg, severing all the ligaments on one side of my knee, which has never fully recovered.

In late December, they decided to discharge me. I had a high fever and suffered from dysentery. I had lost about 25kg and weighed barely 45kg. I was still in a chest cast and my leg hurt like hell.

I was blindfolded, placed in the back of a truck and driven to a prison called The Plantation.

To my great relief I was placed in a cell with two other prisoners, Air Force majors "Bud" Day and Norris Overly. There has never been a doubt that Bud and Norris saved my life.

They later said their first impression of me, emaciated, bug-eyed and bright with fever, was of a man at the threshold of death.

They thought the Vietnamese expected me to die and had placed me in their care to escape the blame when I failed to recover.

Bud had been seriously injured when he ejected. After he was captured, he had attempted an escape and had almost reached an American airfield before he was recaptured.

His captors had looped rope around his shoulders, tightened it until his shoulders were almost touching, and then hung him by the arms from the rafter of the torture room, tearing his shoulders apart.

Left in this condition for hours, Bud never acceded to Vietnamese demands for military information. They had to break his already broken right arm a second time, and threaten to break the other, before Bud gave them anything at all.

Because of his injuries, Bud was unable to help with my physical care. Norris, a gentle, uncomplaining guy, cleaned me up, fed me and helped me on to the bucket that served as our toilet.

Thanks to them, I began to recover. Soon I was able to stand unaided and even manoeuvre around my cell on a pair of crutches.

In April 1968, Bud was relocated to another prison. Norris had been released under an "amnesty" and I would remain in solitary confinement for more than two years.

Though I could manage to hobble around on my crutches, I was in poor shape. I couldn't pick up or carry anything.

The dysentery caused me considerable discomfort: food and water would pass immediately through me, and sharp pains in my stomach made sleeping difficult.

It's an awful thing, solitary. It crushes your spirit and weakens your resistance more effectively than any other form of mistreatment.

Having no one else to seek counsel from, you begin to doubt your judgment and courage.

The first few weeks are the hardest. The onset of despair is immediate, and it is a formidable foe. I reconstructed from memory books and movies I had enjoyed.

I tried to compose books and plays of my own, acting out sequences in the solitude of my cell.

I had to carefully guard against my fantasies becoming so consuming that they took me permanently to a place in my mind from which I might never return.

My cell was directly across the courtyard from the interrogation room. It had a wooden board for a bed and a naked light bulb dangling on a cord in the ceiling. The light was on 24 hours a day.

Adding to our discomfort was the building's tin roof, which must have increased the summer heat by five or more degrees.

In mid-June 1968, the camp commander, over an inviting spread of biscuits and cigarettes, asked me if I would like to go home.

I wanted to say yes: I was tired and sick and I was afraid.

But the Code of Conduct was explicit: "American prisoners cannot accept parole or amnesty or special favours."

I said I would think about it. I knew how my release would affect my father and my fellow prisoners, and I discovered later what the Vietnamese hoped to gain.

On July 4, my father had become Commander in Chief, Pacific. The Vietnamese intended to hail his arrival with a propaganda spectacle, releasing his son as a gesture of "goodwill".

For almost two months, nothing happened. Then the punishment sessions began. I was hauled into an empty room and kept there for four days. At intervals, the guards returned to administer beatings.

One guard held me while the others pounded away.

They cracked several of my ribs and broke a couple of teeth. Weakened by beatings and dysentery, with my right leg again almost useless, I found it impossible to stand.

On the third night I lay in my blood and waste, so tired and hurt that I could not move. Three guards lifted me to my feet and gave me the worst beating yet. They left me lying on the floor moaning from the stabbing pain in my re-fractured arm.

Despairing of any relief from pain and further torture, I tried to take my life. After several unsuccessful attempts, I managed to stand. Up-ending the waste bucket, I stepped on it, bracing myself against the wall with my good arm.

I looped my shirt through the shutters. As I looped it around my neck, a guard saw the shirt through the window, pulled me off the bucket and beat me.

Later, I made a second, feebler attempt at suicide. On the fourth day, I gave up. I signed a confession that "I am a black criminal and I have performed the deeds of an air pilot".

The guards ordered me to record my confession on tape. I refused, and was beaten until I consented.

Those were the worst two weeks of my life. I shook, as if my disgrace was a fever and no one would ever look on me again except in pity or contempt.

The Vietnamese never seemed to mind hurting us, but they usually took care not to put our lives in danger.

We strongly believed that some PoWs were tortured to death and most were seriously mistreated.

One man, Dick Stratton, had huge infected scars on his arms from rope torture. His thumbnails had been torn off and he had been burned with cigarettes.

However, the Vietnamese prized us as bargaining chips in peace negotiations and they usually did not intend to kill us when they used torture to force our co-operation.

By the end of 1969, routine beatings had almost stopped. We occasionally received extra rations. Our circumstances would never be as dire as they had been in those early years.

I was released and flown home at the end of the war, in March 1973. I had been incarcerated for 5 1/2 years.

We were told to have faith in God, country and one another. Most of us did. But the last of these - faith in one another - was our final defence, the ramparts our enemy could not cross. This was the faith I had embraced at the Naval Academy.

It was my father's and grandfather's faith. In prison, a filthy, crippled, broken man, all I had left of my dignity was the faith of my fathers. It was enough.

Adapted and extracted from Faith of My Fathers, by John McCain

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The Gettysburg Address

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

-- Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

List of the Enumerated Powers of Congress

Section 8: The Congress shall have power To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;

To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;—And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.

A List of American Third Parties

* America First Party (2002) * American Party (1968) * America's Independent Party (2008) * Boston Tea Party (2006) * Communist Party of the United States of America (1919) * Constitution Party (1992) * Florida Whig Party (2006) * Green Party (1996) * Independence Party of America (2007) * Libertarian Party (1971) * Moderate Party (2006) * Modern Whig Party (2008) * National Socialist Movement (1959) * New American Independent Party (2004) * Objectivist Party (2008) * Party for Socialism and Liberation (2004) * Peace and Freedom Party (1967) * Pirate Party of the United States (2006) * Progressive Labor Party (1961) * Prohibition Party (1869) * Reform Party of the United States of America (1995) * Socialist Party USA (1973) * Socialist Workers Party (1938) * United States Marijuana Party (2002) * Unity Party of America (2004) * Workers Party (2003) * Working Families Party (1998) Source: Wikipedia

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Speakers of the House

1st Frederick A.C. Muhlenberg, Pennsylvania, Apr 01, 1789

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62nd-65th James Beauchamp Clark, Missouri, Apr 04, 1911

66th-68th Frederick H. Gillett, Massachusetts, May 19, 1919

69th-71st Nicholas Longworth, Ohio, Dec 07, 1925

72nd John N. Garner, Texas, Dec 07, 1931

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76th-79th Sam Rayburn, Texas, Sep 16, 1940

80th Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Massachusetts, Jan 03, 1947

81st, 82nd Sam Rayburn, Texas, Jan 03, 1949

83rd Joseph W. Martin, Jr., Massachusetts, Jan 03, 1953

84th-87th Sam Rayburn, Texas, Jan 05, 1955

87th-91st John W. McCormack, Massachusetts, Jan 10, 1962

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95th-99th Thomas P. O'Neill, Jr., Massachusetts, Jan 04, 1977

100th, 101st James C. Wright, Jr., Texas, Jan 06, 1987

101st-103rd Thomas S. Foley, Washington, Jun 06, 1989

104th, 105th Newt Gingrich, Georgia, Jan 04, 1995

106th-109th J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois, Jan 06, 1999

110th, 111th Nancy Pelosi, California, Jan 04, 2007

112th, 113th, 114th John Boehner, Ohio, Jan, 2011

BLOATED Bastids: List of US Government Departments and Agences

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The Interested American Ranking of the Presidents of the United States of America

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Ronald Reagan
James Madison
Thomas Jefferson
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James K. Polk
William McKinley
Calvin Coolidge
William Taft
George W. Bush
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Zachary Taylor
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Martin Van Buren
John Tyler
William Henry Harrison

George HW Bush
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Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
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Warren Harding
Andrew Johnson
James Buchanan
Herbert Hoover
Bill Clinton
Richard Nixon
Franklin D. Roosevelt
James Carter
Woodrow Wilson
Barack Hussein Obama
Lyndon Baines Johnson


45 Goals of the Communist Party (1963)

  • 01. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
  • 02. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
  • 03. Develop the illustion that total disarmament by the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
  • 04. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
  • 05. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
  • 06. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
  • 07. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
  • 08. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under the supervision of the U.N.
  • 09. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
  • 10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
  • 11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
  • 12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
  • 13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
  • 14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
  • 15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
  • 16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
  • 17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
  • 18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
  • 19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
  • 20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
  • 21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
  • 22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
  • 23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
  • 24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
  • 25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
  • 26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
  • 27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
  • 28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
  • 29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
  • 30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
  • 31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
  • 32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
  • 33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
  • 34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
  • 35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
  • 36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
  • 37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
  • 38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
  • 39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
  • 40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
  • 41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
  • 42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
  • 43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
  • 44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
  • 45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.

List of All United States Supreme Court Justices

Jay, John (1789-1795)
Rutledge, John (1789-1791), (1795)
Cushing, William (1789-1810)
Wilson, James (1789-1798)
Blair, John Jr. (1789-1795)
Iredell, James (1790-1799)
Johnson, Thomas (1791-1793)
Paterson, William (1793-1806)
Chase, Samuel (1796-1811)
Ellsworth, Oliver (1796-1800)
Washington, Bushrod (1798-1829)
Moore, Alfred (1799-1804)
Marshall, John (1801-1835)
Johnson, William Jr. (1804-1834)
Livingston, Henry Brockholst (1806-1823)
Todd, Thomas (1807-1826)
Duvall, Gabriel (1811-1835)
Story, Joseph (1811-1845)
Thompson, Smith (1823-1843)
Trimble, Robert (1826-1828)
McLean, John (1829-1861)
Baldwin, Henry (1830-1844)
Wayne, James Moore (1835-1867)
Barbour, Philip Pendelton (1836-1841)
Taney, Roger Brooke (1836-1864)
Catron, John (1837-1865)
McKinley, John (1837-1852)
Daniel, Peter Vivian (1841-1860)
Nelson, Samuel (1845-1872)
Woodbury, Levi (1845-1851)
Grier, Robert Cooper (1846-1870)
Curtis, Benjamin Robbins (1851-1857)
Campbell, John Archibald (1853-1861)
Clifford, Nathan (1858-1881)
Swayne, Noah Haynes (1862-1881)
Miller, Samuel Freeman (1862-1890)
Davis, David (1862-1877)
Field, Stephen Johnson (1863-1897)
Chase, Salmon Portland (1864-1873)
Strong, William (1870-1880)
Bradley, Joseph P. (1870-1892)
Hunt, Ward (1872-1882)
Waite, Morrison Remick (1874-1888)
Harlan, John Marshall (1877-1911)
Woods, William Burnham (1880-1887)
Matthews, Stanley (1881-1889)
Gray, Horace (1881-1902)
Blatchford, Samuel M. (1882-1893)
Lamar, Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus (1888-1893)
Fuller, Melville Weston (1888-1910)
Brewer, David Josiah (1889-1910)
Brown, Henry Billings (1890-1906)
Shiras, George Jr. (1892-1903)
Jackson, Howell Edmunds (1893-1895)
White, Edward Douglass (1894-1921)
Peckham, Rufus Wheeler (1895-1909)
McKenna, Joseph (1898-1925)
Holmes, Oliver Wendell Jr. (1902-1932)
Day, William Rufus (1903-1922)
Moody, William Henry (1906-1910)
Lurton, Horace Harmon (1909-1914)
Hughes, Charles Evans (1910-1916), (1930-1948)
Van Devanter, Willis (1910-1941)
Lamar, Joseph Rucker (1910-1916)
Pitney, Mahlon (1912-1922)
McReynolds, James Clark (1914-1946)
Brandeis, Louis Dembitz (1916-1941)
Clarke, John Hessin (1916-1922)
Taft, William Howard (1921-1930)
Sutherland, George (1922-1942)
Butler, Pierce (1922-1939)
Sanford, Edward Terry (1923-1930)
Stone, Harlan Fiske (1925-1946)
Roberts, Owen Josephus (1930-1945)
Cardozo, Benjamin Nathan (1932-1938)
Black, Hugo Lafayette (1937-1971)
Reed, Stanley Forman (1938-1980)
Frankfurter, Felix (1939-1965)
Douglas, William Orville (1939-1980)
Murphy, Frank (1940-1949)
Byrnes, James Francis (1941-1942)
Jackson, Robert Houghwout (1941-1954)
Rutledge, Wiley Blount (1943-1949)
Burton, Harold Hitz (1945-1964)
Vinson, Frederick Moore (1946-1953)
Clark, Tom C. (1949-1977)
Minton, Sherman (1949-1965)
Warren, Earl (1953-1974)
Harlan, John Marshall (1955-1971)
Brennan, William Joseph Jr. (1956-1997)
Whittaker, Charles Evans (1957-1965)
Stewart, Potter (1958-1985)
White, Byron Raymond (1962-2002)
Goldberg, Arthur Joseph (1962-1965)
Fortas, Abe (1965-1969)
Marshall, Thurgood (1967-1993)
Burger, Warren Earl (1969-1995)
Blackmun, Harry Andrew (1970-1999)
Powell, Lewis Franklin Jr. (1971-1998)
Rehnquist, William Hubbs (1971-2005)
Stevens, John Paul (1975-2010)
O`Connor, Sandra Day (1981-2005)
Scalia, Antonin (1986-present)
Kennedy, Anthony McLeod (1988-present)
Souter, David Hackett (1990-2009)
Thomas, Clarence (1991-present)
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader (1993-present)
Breyer, Stephen Gerald (1994-present)
Roberts, John Glover Jr. (2005-present)
Alito, Samuel A. Jr. (2006-present)
Sotomayor, Sonia (2009-present)
Elana Kagan (2010-present)

Ranking Countries by Economic Freedom

Hong Kong
Singapore
Australia
New Zealand
Ireland
Switzerland
Canada
United States
Denmark
Chile
United Kingdom
Mauritius
Bahrain
Luxembourg
The Netherlands
Estonia
Finland
Iceland
Japan
Macau
Sweden
Austria
Germany
Cyprus
Saint Lucia
Georgia
Botswana
Lithuania
Belgium
South Korea
El Salvador
Uruguay
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Spain
Norway
Armenia
Qatar
Barbados
Mexico
Kuwait
Oman
Israel
Peru
United Arab Emirates
The Bahamas
Malta
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Latvia
Hungary
Jordan
Albania
Costa Rica
Trinidad and Tobago
Macedonia
Jamaica
Colombia
Malaysia
Panama
Slovenia
Portugal
Romania
France
Saudi Arabia
Thailand
Turkey
Montenegro
Madagascar
Dominica
Poland
South Africa
Greece
Italy
Bulgaria
Uganda
Namibia
Cape Verde
Belize
Kyrgyz Republic
Paraguay
Kazakhstan
Guatemala
Samoa
Fiji
Dominican Republic
Ghana
Mongolia
Lebanon
Burkina Faso
Morocco
Croatia
Rwanda
Egypt
Tunisia
Azerbaijan
Tanzania
Nicaragua
Honduras
Zambia
Kenya
Swaziland
Bhutan
Serbia
Algeria
Nigeria
Cambodia
Vanuatu
Philippines
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mozambique
Mali
Brazil
Indonesia
Benin
Gabon
Pakistan
Gambia
Senegal
Sri Lanka
Yemen
Malawi
Cote d'Ivoire
India
Moldova
Papua New Guinea
Tonga
Tajikistan
Niger
Nepal
Suriname
Cameroon
Mauritania
Guinea
Argentina
Ethiopia
Bangladesh
Laos
Djibouti
China
Haiti
Micronesia
Russia
Vietnam
Syria
Bolivia
Ecuador
Maldives
Sao Tome and Principe
Belarus
Equatorial Guinea
Central African Republic
Guyana
Angola
Lesotho
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Uzbekistan
Chad
Burundi
Togo
Ukraine
Liberia
Timor-Leste
Comoros
Kiribati
Guinea-Bissau
Iran
Republic of Congo
Solomon Islands
Turkmenistan
Democratic Republic of Congo
Libya
Venezuela
Burma
Eritrea
Cuba
Zimbabwe
North Korea

Not Indexed:
Afghanistan
Iraq
Liechtenstein
Sudan

Source: 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal.


The Bill of Rights

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.



Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.



Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.



Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.



Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.



Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.



Amendment VII

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.



Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.



Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.



Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Right to Work States

  • Alabama
  • Arizona
  • Arkansas
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Idaho
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Louisiana
  • Mississippi
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Oklahoma
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Virginia
  • Wyoming

Top Conservative Colleges in America

Ave Maria University, CONS
Benedictine College, CONS
Brighham Young University, PR08, CONS,
Calvin College, USN06,
Cedarville University, EHOW
Christendom College, YAF10, CONS,
College of the Ozarks, YAF10, PR08,
Evangel University, CONS
Franciscan University of Steubenville, YAF10, CONS, EHOW
Grove City College, YAF10, PR08, CONS,
Harding University, YAF10
Hampden-Sydney College, PR08,
Hillsdale College, YAF10, PR08, CONS
The King's College, YAF10, CONS,
Liberty University, YAF10, USN06, CONS,
Newberry College, CONS
Ohio Wesleyan University, EHOW
Patrick Henry College, YAF10, CONS,
Regent University, YAF10
Saint Vincent College, YAF10
Thomas Aquinas College, YAF10, CONS,
Thomas More College, YAF10
United States Airforce Academy, PR08
United States Coast Guard Academy, CONS
United States Merchant Marine Academy, PR08
United States Naval Academy, PR08
University of Dallas, PR08, CONS
Wheaton College, PR08
Wisconsin Lutheran College, YAF10

Sources:
CONS — Conservapedia
EHOW — eHow.com
PR08 — Princeton Review 2008.
YAF10 — Young America's Foundation 2009-2010.
USN06 — US News and World Report 2006.

The Worst Mass Murderers in History

1. Mao Tse Tung (China) Roughly 70 million murdered.
2. Josef Stalin (Soviet Union) Roughly 23 million murdered.
3. Adolf Hitler (Germany) Roughly 12 million murdered.
4. Ismail Enver (Turkey) Roughly 2.5 million murdered.
5. Pol Pot (Cambodia) Roughly 1.7 million murdered.

Hirohito (Japan)
Vladimir Lenin (Soviet Union)
Saddam Hussein (Iraq)
Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam)
Kim Il Sung (North Korea)
Ion Antonescu (Romania)
Fidel Castro (Cuba)
Che Guevara (Argentina)
Robespierre (France)
Idi Amin (Uganda)
Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)
Radovan Karadzic (Bosnia)
Francisco Franco (Spain)
Osama Bin Laden (Al-Qaeda)